Antics and Exploits
The St. Louis Family
•The trek by Italian criminals in New Orleans to St. Louis began shortly
after the end of the Civil War. Black Hand extortion was reported in the
city as early as 1876. However, Italians would not dominate organized
crime in the city until after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
•By the time Prohibition arrived, there were five gangs of importance in
St. Louis: The Sicilian Green Ones, the Pillow Gang, the Egan’s Rats, the
Hogan Gang, and the Cuckoos.
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The Green Ones
The Green Ones reportedly received their name from the farming communities in Sicily where
they originated. The leadership of this group, brothers John and Vito Giannola and Alphonse
Palizzola, came from the Stoppagleria faction of the Sicilian mafia. The trio financed their
passage to United States with several robberies in 1915. Once they arrived in America the three
went their separate ways– John Giannola to Chicago, Vito Giannola to St. Louis, and Palizzola
to Springfield, Illinois.
A few years later at Vito’s urging they reunited in St. Louis where they imposed a tax on all
goods sold in the city’s Italian community. With little resistance, the trio went about establishing
a foothold in the rackets. In 1923, Vito moved to take control of the wholesale meat industry.
One recalcitrant distributor objected and was brutally murdered as an example to others. His
body was found under the Kingshighway viaduct on September 16, 1923.
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The Green Ones
Finding bootlegging a more prosperous venture, the trio soon found that
the non-Italian gangs dominated the liquor trade in St. Louis. Their first
endeavor in this area resulted in the death of Sam Palizzola, a relative of
Alphonse, in September 1924. The murder was believed to have been
carried out by members of the Egan’s Rats gang. When members of that
gang were sent to prison in 1925, the Green Ones found a new adversary
in the Cuckoos Gang.
The Green Ones struck the first blow in this battle. On
September 14, 1925, John and Catherine Gray were murdered
after complaining about having to purchase liquor for their
Eagle Park resort from the Green Ones. The couple was shot
dead in their automobile, which was then set on fire. The
Cuckoos retaliated by shooting up a farmhouse hideout of the
Green Ones where the gang had an alky-cooking operation. No
one was injured.
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On January 29, 1926, law officers Ohmer Hockett and John
Balke attempted to shake down a still operation belonging to
the Green Ones. After ignoring an opening offer of $200, the
two men waited until “the boss” arrived. The two lawmen
were greeted by four members of the gang, who then beat
them unconscious. The following day they were taken into
the woods and watched as their graves were dug. They were
then shot and buried.
Pasquale Santino, a member of a rival gang, put the finger on
Alphonse Palizzola, as he became the first of the Green Ones’
leadership to be murdered. On September 9, 1927, four
gunmen blasted away at Palizzola on Tenth Street. A 10-yearold boy was also killed by one of the ricocheting bullets.
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More On The Green Ones!
Vito Giannola was the next to die. He was shot 37 times while hiding in
the house of Augustina Cusumano on December 28, 1927. Giannola had
chased away Cusumano’s husband and was living with the woman. Two
men claiming to be police officers came to the house and, after finding
Giannola hiding in a secret compartment upstairs, murdered him. John
Giannola went into hiding after the death of his brother and was never
again a factor in St. Louis. He was said to have died peacefully in his
sleep in 1955.
During the short Giannola and Palizzola leadership, police records show 30
people were murdered and 18 wounded. Among the wounded was James
Licavoli, the future boss of the Cleveland mafia. Police shot Licavoli as they
attempted to arrest Joseph Bommarito, an associate of the Green Ones. The
police killed Bommarito when he resisted arrest.
Licavoli
No More About The Green Ones!
Another associate of Licavoli at this time was Giovanni “John” Mirabella
who was arrested at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio in December 1928
during the first known meeting of the national crime cartel. He and
Licavoli would eventually work together in Detroit, Toledo and
Youngstown. Mirabella was a suspect in the sensational murder of Detroit
radio crusader Jerry Buckley in July 1930.
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The Pillow Gang
One of the earliest Italian gangs was the Pillow Gang that began
operating in the city around 1910. The gang’s name came from its
leader Carmelo Fresina, who carried a pillow with him to sit on after
he had been shot in the rear end. Years later Senator Estes Kefauver
would sum up Fresina’s career, “Eventually Fresina, an extortionist
and bootlegger, was dispatched with two bullets in the head and no
longer needed his pillow.”
According to historian Walter M. Fontane, between 1910 and 1914 there was
an ongoing battle between Italian factions in the city that left 10 dead and
several survivors deported. “Freelancing became the way of the Mafia” until
new leadership came in the name of Dominic Giambrioni in the late teens.
After the arrival of the Giannolas, Giambrioni was forced out in 1924. He
returned 10 years later and was murdered. In 1922, Fresina arrived and joined
the faction headed by Pasquale Santino. After Santino was murdered in 1927,
Fresina took over the gang, which became allied with a maverick splinter
group of the Green Ones led by Tony Russo. Together they waged a battle with
the Green Ones.
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Really fluffy! Don’t you agree?
In January 1929, after the Giannolas had been eliminated, Fresina and two
members of his gang attended a meeting at the home of a Russo faction
member. It was rumored that Fresina had made peace with remaining
members of the Green Ones and the Russo faction felt they had been
betrayed. In a wild shooting Fresina was wounded in the buttocks and his
two associates killed. The Russo Gang, already depleted due to the
deportation of three Russo brothers in 1928, continued to do battle with
Fresina and the Green Ones until their faction “disintegrated” around 1932.
Pillow gang members then turned and fought the Green Ones again after
they blamed them for the death of Fresina, who was killed near
Edwardsville, Illinois in 1931.
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Egan’s Rats…
What began as a political organization forged by St. Louis Fifth Ward Democratic
Committeeman Thomas Egan and Missouri State Senator Thomas Kinney, was by 1907
known as Egan’s Rats. Early “political activities” included robbery, burglary and theft
from railroad boxcars.
In April 1919, Thomas Egan died of natural causes and was replaced as Fifth Ward
Boss by his brother William T. “Willie” Egan. During the teens, Rats’ lieutenant
Max “Big Maxey” Greenberg was imprisoned on federal charges of interstate theft.
Willie Egan was able to pull strings, which reached all the way to President
Woodrow Wilson, to get Greenberg’s sentence commuted. He served just six
months of a five-year sentence. Greenberg then repaid Egan by switching his
allegiance to the Hogan Gang.
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Egan’s Rats (continued)
Greenberg fled St. Louis for Detroit where he got involved in smuggling
liquor from Canada. Needing better financing he sought out Irving Wexler
(Waxey Gordon) in New York, who in turn introduced him to Arnold
Rothstein. Wexler and Greenberg established a successful rum running
operation before Greenberg returned to St. Louis in early 1921.
Upon Greenburg’s return, Egan retaliated. In March 1921, one of his
gunmen fired at Greenberg while he was standing with a group of men at
Sixth Street and Chester. Greenberg was wounded and political lobbyist
John P. Sweeney was killed.
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This is where you belong!
In the fall of 1921 rivals got even with Willie Egan when he was gunned down as he left
a saloon at 14th Street and Franklin Avenue. The Rats blamed the murder of their leader
on the Hogan Gang, led by Edward J. “Jellyroll” Hogan. Rumors spread that $30,000
was paid for the hit. Egan died in City Hospital refusing to name who shot him. “I’m a
good sport,” Egan replied before dying. A week later, Greenberg walked into police
headquarters with a Hogan Gang lawyer Jacob H. Mackler and provided an airtight
alibi.
The alibi didn’t satisfy William P. Colbeck, Willie Egan’s replacement in the Rats.
“Dinty” Colbeck, was a husky plumber and a former World War I infantryman. Taking
over the gang, Colbeck had surmised that Greenberg had planned Egan’s death; the
attorney was the payoff man, and James Hogan was one of the gunmen. Those three,
plus Hogan gunmen John Doyle and Luke Kennedy, were marked for death.
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The first to go was John Doyle in January 1922. Next, Rat gunmen fired on an automobile
containing Mackler, Kennedy and James Hogan at Eleventh and Market Streets. No one
was injured. Mackler was not as fortunate on February 21 when fifteen shots were fired
into his automobile on Twelfth Street killing him instantly. The Hogan Gang responded by
murdering Rat member George Kurloff in a restaurant on Franklin Avenue. The Rats
retaliated by dispatching the bodies of Joseph Cammarata, Joseph Cipolla, and Everett
Summers in ditches along lonely county roads. Those murders were followed by the death
of Luke Kennedy, whose car was riddled with bullets in May 1922. Hogan gunmen
retaliated a few days later by blasting away at Colbeck’s plumbing store on Washington
Avenue. The following day, Egan’s Rats gunmen shot up “Jellyroll” Hogan’s home.
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During the trigger-happy forays that were occurring, several businesses had their
windows shot out and once a young boy was hit by an automobile driven by fleeing
gunmen. Public anger, caused by the mob shootings, forced police into action and
Colbeck moved the gang’s headquarters outside of the city to St. Louis County. The
gang converted an 11-room house into the Maxwelton Club, and took over an
abandoned horse and motorcycle racetrack near St. Charles Rock Road and
Pennsylvania Avenue. Here the Rats raced around the track taking target practice on tin
cans and whiskey bottles terrorizing the local residents.
Over a two-year period, the death toll in the Egan’s Rats / Hogan Gang War reached 23.
After the deaths of Doyle and Kennedy, the Rats turned their attention to Greenberg.
Colbeck and William “Red” Smith were arrested while waiting outside police
headquarters where Greenberg was once being questioned. The police smuggled
Greenberg out a back door and the following day he fled to New York where he worked
again with Wexler. In April 1933 Greenberg was murdered in an Elizabeth, New Jersey
hotel.
The Rats Are Done For!
The Cuckoo Gang!
The Cuckoos were headed by the three Tipton
brothers, Herman, Ray and Roy. The gang earned a
reputation for being “fast and willing shooters who
would fight anyone, including themselves. Extortion
from bootleggers and other gangs, robbery,
kidnapping and murder for fun and profit were
Cuckoo specialties.”
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Ah, those CRAZY
CUCKOOS!
Carl and Earl Shelton
More On the Cuckoos!
It was Roy Tipton who planned the 1923 mail truck robbery that netted its
participants $2.4 million and 25 years in prison. The Cuckoos suffered minor
losses in manpower from the convictions and continued on. A few months
later the losses began to mount. Gang members Oliver Hamilton and Clarence
“Dizzy” Daniels were sentenced to life in prison, and August “Gus” Webbe
was sentenced to 10 years for the killing of St. Louis Officers Edward Griffin
and John Surgant during a robbery. This was followed by Joseph “Mulehead”
Simon, Jimmy Michaels, and Ben “Melonhead” Bommarito being arrested for
the armed robbery of a jeweler and the attempted robbery of a shoe company
payroll. Next came Milford Jones, implicated in a robbery with Carl, Bernie,
and Earl Shelton. Bennie Bethel was a suspect in a Pine Lawn bank robbery,
while Joseph Costello, Marvin Paul Michaels and Alfred Salvaggi were
questioned in the deaths of the aforementioned John and Catherine Gray.
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Cuckoo Extravaganza!
In 1925, Cuckoo Gang member Tommy Hayes was released from prison after serving
time for a mail / payroll robbery in January 1921 in Wood River, Illinois. Hayes was
considered an unusual gangster because he came from a respectable family, didn’t
drink or smoke, and worked out to stay in shape. Hayes’ police record began in 1913
when he was 15. By the early 1920s, he had become “an efficient killer.”
In the mid-1920s the Cuckoos survived a gang war with the Green Ones, in
which 13 mobsters were killed. It was rumored that a truce was declared
after a three-day peace conference was held between Herman Tipton and
Green Ones’ leader Giannola. The agreement ended when Tony “Shorty”
Russo, and his brothers led a splinter group away from the Green Ones. The
leadership of this renegade group was short lived when Russo and Vincent
Spicuzza were found slain outside Chicago, each with a nickel in their
hands, the trademark murder signature of Al Capone gunman “Machine
Gun Jack” McGurn. Authorities believed the two were trying to collect a
$50,000 bounty put on Capone by rival Joe Aiello.
The war continued for another two years, during which another dozen plus
mobsters were killed. Among them were James Russo and Mike “the Chink”
Longo, both murdered by Tommy Hayes. The war came to an end on July
29, 1928 after St. Louis police escorted the surviving Russo brothers –
William, Thomas, and Lawrence – to the Union Station so they could get out
of town alive.
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The Cuckoos were soon involved in another gang battle as they lent their guns to
Carl Shelton’s East Side Gang to fight the Birger Gang. When the Birger Gang
was eliminated in 1930, Shelton ordered the Cuckoos out of the East Side. When
Herman Tipton refused to leave because of the sudden bootlegging wealth he
was enjoying there, Shelton convinced Hayes to split from the gang and turned
on Tipton. Another dozen or so killings took place during this faction war. In
February 1931, Hayes led an attack on a roadhouse in which three Shelton men
were killed. Shelton, suspecting a double-cross, in turn double-crossed Hayes on
April 15, 1932. Hayes was found in Madison, Illinois with 12 slugs in his back.
His death effectively ended the Cuckoo gang as a force in the St. Louis
underworld, although, as with Egan’s Rats members, many ex-Cuckoos would
be around for decades.
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Cuckoo Gang?
Now wasn’t that just refreshing?!